Before the Cherry Blossoms Bloomed
by flores salicis
Summary: Two stories that, like their subjects' lives, were incomplete apart and so were entwined to give color to the path that led to that morning before the cherry blossoms bloomed when one life ends and another is left as bare as the branches of early spring.
1. Byakuya: Violets in the Night

**Byakuya: Prologue**

The tiny print on Kotetsu-fukutaicho's report blurred. He squinted, but his tired eyes had long passed their limits. The blank margins took on a life of their own, creeping into his consciousness.  
>Slim hands as white and nearly as translucent as the heirloom scarf around his neck holding delicate sprigs of dark pine behind the pastel lavender of the crocus blossoms.<br>_That woman_ once told him there was a kind of sense that could only be found in the exhaustion that left one teetering on the edge of consciousness. Bitterly, he reflected how, like most of her prattle, it was nonsense. He only ever saw those ghostly hands clutching at bouquets.  
><em>Flowers never begrudged anyone their beauty, even when broken from their homes and forced into unnatural arrangements at the whim of another. But inevitably, they withered to nothingness within the elaborate confines of such alien rules and traditions.<em>  
>Sometimes he saw those same hands flipping open a thick book. It looked so heavy, supported by fragile fingers and palms so pale the faint yellow of the off-white pages seemed intense by comparison. A startling red flower slipped from between the pages.<br>_Flowers can be pressed, their beauty immortalized. But their soul is crushed, and when you try to embrace the beauty you refused to set free, it crumbles in your hands and you realize it has already long decayed already._  
>A few times, he wondered if it was memories of his mother. Part of his mind calmly told him it was hard to imagine when he ever could have been alone with the mistress of the Kuchiki clan for her to say such things. She had passed on when he was so young he thought it perfectly natural he remembered nothing of her. Another part, equally reasonable, asked why his utterly unfanciful mind would trouble itself to invent false recollections of her.<br>So he endured these strange fragmented visions of hands that were the same deathly white as the Senzaikyuu, hands that clutched at vibrant petals, half-convinced it was an elaborate hoax by Senbonzakura.

**Byakuya: Violets in the Night**

One hundred, one hundred one, one hundred two, one hundred three... Suddenly the wind was knocked out of him as he crashed against a branch. Cursing quietly to himself, he realized belatedly he had miscalculated the distance of that last step. One hundred three. Hardly enough.

_One hundred three pins jabbing into his skull._  
>"<em>Not enough," the servant chided as he fidgeted in his seat. A warning glare from his tutor (or was it his father? There was never anything to distinguish them in his mind.) stilled him.<em>

Three hundred – he would manage three hundred consecutive shunpo steps before the night was out. Failure was not an option.

_Three hundred pins spearing his scalp. Three hundred pairs of eyes watching him, waiting to notice any lapse of decorum. More than three hundred nights spent standing perfectly poised even while sweltering beneath the suffocating layers of his ceremonial robes until he was as used to it as his own skin._  
>"<em>You look like a puffed up, overdressed poodle." Eyes of a brilliant amber peered into his, sparkling with mirth. "Especially with that ridiculous kenseiken stuck in your hair." She swiped his hair ornament.<em>_He lunged for it, but she was already twenty feet away._  
>"<em>You know the rules," she smirked. "If you want it back, you'll have to catch me."<em>

He leaned against a branch, breathing deeply to loosen the knot of pain forming in his lower abdomen. The pale moon hung limply midst the wild purple background of the night sky.

_The pristine white fabric hung limply in her right hand while she effortlessly blocked his sword with her kodachi in her left. He saw the intricate chain of entwined golden dragons around the hilt, a symbol of the Shihouin clan._  
>"<em>What is the Shihouin heir doing in my bedroom at this hour?" he demanded coolly, resheathing his sword.<em>  
><em>She ignored him, dropping the robe carelessly back onto his chair. She strolled around casually as he grit his teeth.<em>  
>"<em>Typical Kuchiki room," she remarked. "Perfectly proportioned, perfectly clean, perfectly devoid of personality."<em>  
><em>He had the vague feeling she was commenting on more than the room. And that little of it was complimentary. "You have precisely two seconds before I alert the entire estate that an intruder is in my personal chambers."<em>  
><em>She regarded him with amused condescension. "In two seconds, I will be halfway back to the Shihouin grounds."<em>  
>"<em>One...two..."<em>  
><em>There was no trace of her except the creases in his now-rumpled robe.<em>

Two hundred, two hundred one, two hundred two, two hundred three, two hundred four... A sharp pain tore through his ankle as his feet caught in a protruding root. He jutted his hands out just in time to break the fall somewhat.  
>Two hundred four. Failure again.<p>

_Two hundred four stony faces of the Kuchiki children watching him with a mix of awe, fear, and raw dislike. A brief spasm of discomfort must have crossed his features because a voice hissed in his ears, "Never let an emotion cross your face again. A man whose thoughts are known can be manipulated, and the Kuchiki head is no one's pawn."_

No, he thought, remembering the stifling folds of his satin robes and the choking weight of the heavy platinum chain. The Kuchiki heads were the pawns of the thousands upon thousands of voices encoded by these rules, voices of those long dead. He wished he could have been the pawn to someone living.

_She picked up one of the polished marble pieces, examining it with interest. "So, are you any good at chess?"_  
><em>He shot her an affronted glare.<em>  
>"<em>Ah, naturally the Kuchiki heir would be a chess prodigy." She had the uncanny ability to make compliments sound like insults. "I was never taught chess. After all, the leaders who view their decisions as a game-making strategy and their subordinates as inanimate tools are usually the worst of leaders."<em>  
><em>She casually threw one of the pawns at his face. Startled, he caught it but realized belatedly he had left himself open and she had stolen his hairtie. Again.<em>  
><em>"Cheater!"<em>

He picked the damp leaves from his hakama as he gathered reiatsu to heal the sprain. He had seen the root in time to avoid it, but his foot had not been able to follow the directive in time. It was always a source of endless frustration for him, that his own body would fail to instantaneously obey the orders of his mind. It seemed like the worst sort of betrayal.

"_Betrayal?" She stared at him. "Hell, you're pompous. Your body isn't one of those little meek servants for you to order around."_  
>"<em>It should be under the jurisdiction of my mind and therefore has a duty to obey its orders," he returned, somewhat petulantly.<em>  
><em>She laughed at him in that superior manner that always grated his nerves. Just because she was a few decades older, she always seemed to think she knew more about everything. "Even subordinates resist – sometimes subconsciously – if they don't have sufficient trust in your orders. Why should your body be any different?"<em>  
><em>He snorted in disbelief. His body lacked trust in his own judgment? What was he to do to earn its trust? Hold long heart-to-heart conversations?<em>  
>"<em>I hardly mean for you to try to talk – or bully – your body into submission," she said dryly, reading his thoughts. "It just means your mind is conflicted. Hence, your body becomes distrustful and slower to respond." She smiled impishly as she quoted, "'A warrior's mind must at all times be absolutely focused. No hesitation, no doubt; only the goal in his mind, before his eyes, on his blade.'"<em>  
><em>He was surprised to hear the familiar words of a precept for heirs of the noble clans from her. As far as he knew, generations of Shihouin heirs considered a point of pride that they never learned a single one.<em>  
><em>She shrugged. "It's a bit of a clan secret, but that's the only one they do drill into our heads. Mostly because it's the only one that makes any sense." A taunting gleam was in her eyes. "Is it also the only one that our perfect Kuchiki heir can't obey?"<em>

Three hundred steps. He tried to clear his mind of everything but three hundred steps and the feel of the wind skimming beneath his feet as he ripped holes in the time/space continuum with his reiatsu for each successive step. Three hundred, he chanted to himself, three hundred.

"_This is our three hundredth game," she informed him, dangling a bottle of sake in front of him._  
>"<em>Indeed," he said, attempting to feign disinterest. It was barely noon, far too early for it to be proper to be drinking.<em>  
><em>She gazed at him with a strange, softness at the edge of her eyes. But only for a moment. He blinked in confusion. It had made her eyes rather lovely – a warm sort of gold like the edges of a fire blazing in the hearth on a cold winter morning.<em>  
>"<em>I hear you've been promoted again already, and to the fourth seat," she said.<em>  
><em>Her rapid changes of topics had long ceased to confuse him. "What of it?"<em>  
>"<em>You'll probably make taichou someday," she mused. He was deeply offended by the word 'probably', but she was on to the next topic. "Will you have beaten me – just once – in tag before then?"<em>  
><em>He was already standing where she was a moment ago, but she had disappeared from his sight.<em>  
><em>An hour later, throat burning, he saw her a few feet away. She was gasping for breath as well. "Almost." She smiled. There was a trace of that softness in her eyes again, but it seemed<em>_somehow...melancholy? "I suppose I'll let you have a taste of the sake anyway."_

She was saying good-bye. The memory of the warm sake would forever burn a path down his throat like acid. There was that stinging behind his eyes. He bit his lips hard and felt the coppery taste of blood on his tongue as he ruthlessly suppressed the wrenching pangs in his chest.

_A distant cousin, secretary to one of the Kuchikis in the Central 46 Chambers, sat quivering before him._  
>"<em>We would like to know if you have any information on the possible whereabouts of the fugitive Shihouin Yoruichi," he asked nervously.<em>  
>"<em>None." Byakuya noted with relief his voice was utterly impassive, even as the word 'fugitive' resounded in his head, even as the flood of questions he wanted to scream at the Shihouin, at everyone, but mostly, at Yoruichi churned furiously through his mind.<em>  
>"<em>Certainly, my lord. We mean no untoward insinuations. We understand that you would never engage or assist in activities of dubious legality. We merely wondered..." the man was babbling. His already eroded patience was gone.<em>  
>"<em>Do you have any further pertinent questions?" he interrupted icily.<em>  
>"<em>Oh, no, not at all. You have been most generous, most cooperative. Thank you ever so much for agreeing to help with the investigation," the man gulped.<em>

Three hundred consecutive steps, he reminded himself. He would manage the three hundred steps and then she would have no hold left on him. Once that goal was achieved, he would have no reason to ever think of her again. But as he stared into the endless dark of the forest, he could not help but think that, really, the worst sort of betrayal was a friend who left him behind to chase hopelessly after shadows in the silent night.


	2. Hisana: Sketches of Scarlet

**Hisana: Sketches of Scarlet**

These were the images she wished she had drawn for him, but each time the picture changed when she began to sketch.  
>No, if she were honest, it was because her courage failed her. She always made excuses, of course. The excitement of the rainbow of colors she now had access to, all the exotic purples and blues and yellows she had dreamed of – and many she hadn't: turquoise and magenta and coral and countless others – how could she possibly resist them and confine herself to drab browns and blacks? And red. The only bright color she saw for so many decades.<br>Too late now. Her hands were so numb she could barely feel the support of his sturdy hands around them.

*o*o*

She would have drawn a few sparse lines of brown and snarled knots of grey and black everywhere else.  
>All her mortal memories were so distant, and in nearly every way so similar to her Rukongai existence that they meshed together and became indistinct, save for a few grim recollections, like the perpetual gnawing pangs in her stomach that she had thought was simply a given in life until she arrived in Soul Society. She did not remember parents, so she assumed they had long blurred into the haze of all the adults she came across in those slums: dead eyes and dead souls trying to claw a decaying existence from their decaying surroundings.<br>She did not know if she would have had the courage to draw the two violet spots, the only burst of color there ever was in those memories. They were the only eyes that looked at her and saw her. She did not know back then this was the worst curse one could inflict on another and instead swore to never let those eyes vanish from her life.

*o*o*

Next, a page of black and orange and yellow and blue in a chaotic jumble. This was the only other distinctly mortal memory: her death. Bitter smells of singed flesh and hair and wood as ashes choked her throat. Cracked lips and raw throat remained when she woke, but there was something far worse in her nose. A putrid scent, an inhuman howl, an abomination headed towards her sister, a blinding surge of fear, seizing her sister and running, running, running without hope. It was drawing nearer – nearer – nearer, and she could feel that aura of terrible lust and hate and hunger crawling along her skin.  
>A hiss in the air. Then nothing.<br>She did not fail her sister. She saved Aoiko that time.

*o*o*

Sparse lines of brown again. A more furious tangle of black. Black like the uniform of the strange lying bastard who had sent them to an existence as wretched the one they had just endured while promising a heaven.  
>She never did believe in heaven. Hell was more like it. Same dry throat. Same squalid anarchy.<br>Several hours later, when she frantically tore through the bushes trying to find her baby sister, she realized this place was far, far worse than Hell. Hell was where they punished the wicked, and while she had certainly committed her fair share of wrongs in her life, Aoiko had not lived long enough to merit whatever fate she surely must have met.  
>Even if she carried the guilt with her forever afterwards, it would not be punishment enough.<p>

*o*o*

Same bleak brown frames, but large swathes of crimson cut through the grays and blacks. The only bright color so freely available when she drew figures on the ground, although, as the blood dried, it dulled into a brownish-red and lost its luster. At least freshly bleeding corpses were hardly rare, especially those of children. She would know – she examined every single one, her heart pounding in her ears each time as she searched for traces of her own features, both fearing and needing the closure.

*o*o*

There was that one time when she had seen a lovely shade of brown; she never knew brown could be pretty. His hair was rich and glossy and even in the hazy light sullied with thick clouds of dust and smoke, she could see flecks of gold. It was a terrible shame to see it matted with blood as she left him lying in the dirt, a gaping knife wound in his neck.

*o*o*

Red, red, endless red. Dark flow of red drenching her hands. She could never wash it out anymore, or that faintly sweet, coppery smell. It was even in her water. She found herself choking each time she drank that liquid with its slightly acidic, piercing taste. Little by little, it had ceased to alleviate the persistent burning in her throat.

*o*o*

A circle of pale, pale yellow. She could finally see the outline of the sun in the sky. The air was a little cleaner, and amid the endless rows of discolored wood and broken planks, she would occasionally encounter a scrap of color that was not scarlet – rags of grimy blue here, of muddied green there.  
>It was here she first saw a living child with tousled ebony hair, so emaciated and dirty she could not determine the gender. Her heart beat so wildly she was certain it would burst from her ribcage as she approached the youngster, but at that moment, a blur of white and black passed her. There were thundering hooves, rhythmic lashes of whips, an eruption of curses, a sickening crunch of bones and a dull thud of flesh crashing into a flimsy wall.<br>The landau had long vanished into the distance, and left a mangled, broken body flung to the side.  
>These, she learned, were the vehicles of the shinigami, those lying bastards in black uniforms that had sent her and Aoiko here. Gods of death, they were called, because their carriages of black spelled brutal doom for anyone caught in their reckless paths.<p>

*o*o*

A background of navy blue, faded unevenly around the arrays of lavender crocuses, dark enough to hide some of the damp blotches of crimson, but the other spots overpowered the washed-out color. The old woman crumpled beside her. The thin fabric she had been carefully placing over Hisana's shivering body fell from her fingers and into her killer's lap. She was smiling weakly even as the knife dropped from the younger woman's frozen hands. The sound of the metal clang against the cement floor reverberated against the bare walls of the storage room. The thud of the body against a rotted wooden crate resounded in Hisana's mind as the last traces of sleep vanished.  
>"I was dying anyway," the woman whispered.<br>"Oh my god," she choked out and could think of nothing else to say. The image of the ashen face of the woman and greying hair blurred with images of brown, blonde, white, and black locks soaking in pools of red, faces contorted in shock, stark terror, raw agony. But never forgiveness. Never this ghastly forgiveness and understanding. "I swear I didn't know - I didn't mean to - "  
>"Better at your hands than a shinigami's." She was still smiling. How could she smile? "Take care of that yukata."<br>She was dead. A bloodstained yukata lay in Hisana's lap, so limp, so terrible.

*o*o*

Irregular, pitiless gray lines in parallel. As far as the eye could see, the fence stretched on, cobbled together from barbed wires and broken bits of glass and cement and jagged planks. Two long lines of stony-faced men guarded the lone entrance, menacing pairs of swords hanging at their hips. The raging crowd pounded at the opposite side, a swollen wave crashing futilely against the brittle side of a cliff.  
>"Whadda buncha numbskulls," someone snorted from a few feet away. An unruly mass of curls hid most of his face. He was wearing a tattered tunic of coarse burlap, and his feet were caked in dried blood. Despite the wounds, he seemed more than a foot taller and about three times her weight. She tensed, furtively closing her hands around the handle of her dagger, but he did not move closer. "You'da think they'da learned their lesson by now."<br>She shrugged noncommitally but did not loosen her grip on her weapon.  
>"Those shinigami bastards are jus' gonna keep sayin' their patrol efforts ain't quite 'nuff yet ta make 'em keep spendin' more money on patrollin' 'emselves. When they gonna finally jus' see that those fuckers in Seireitei ain't never gonna give a damn 'bout us?" he said furiously.<br>"If they're so stupid, then that means there oughta be a way to break in," she pointed out. She didn't particularly want to hear more about the shinigami. The word always brought to mind fragmented images of a child's head bashed open and the deep grooves left behind by the wheel stained with blood, and rage would cloud her mind and she couldn't afford that.  
>The man stared at her. "Ya see any way ta break down that fence? 'Cause we ain't gettin' through that entrance. That's fer damn sure."<br>She surveyed the bedraggled, stormy faces of the rabble packed inside the dusty lot. The frenzied desperation was almost palpable - the guards knew it too. If she squinted, she could see the expressions of those standing nearest to the gates, a bit too taut, a bit too pale to be unreadable. "It won't take much for this mob to go ape-shit, and the guards know it. Look at the first two. They're fucking scared."  
>The man narrowed his eyes, staring at her intently. "Ya mean ta stir 'em up. Get a riot goin'. And use the rest of 'em as shields ta slip in."<br>She looked back at him defiantly. "You got a better idea?"  
>The first glimmerings of something like respect entered into his eyes.<p>

*o*o*

Broad strokes of eerie black beneath a thin layer of gray. She huddled under the dirty bundles of tatami mats riddled with holes that were rolled against the wall until long after the shrieks and howls and sounds of metal slicing into flesh and dying moans had ceased. The funereal silence clogged the air dank with the odor of blood and human waste and smoke and ashes. Her throat burned painfully.  
>She carefully crept out, taking care to not place any pressure on her inflamed ankle, which she had carelessly twisted in her haste to hide. She heard footsteps approaching and scrambled to find her knife. The man with wild curls stood before her. She fumbled with the handle but her fingers were cramped from supporting the pile of mats and with growing panic, she realized she wasn't going to make it in time. He was already in front of her, dark, large, and frightening in the sinister maroon of the sunset with the stench of death closing in all around them. She blinked as he stooped with nothing more than a strip of fabric in his hand and gently bound her ankle.<br>It was several moments before she realized her cheeks were damp with her tears.

*o*o*

A hint of blue, the quiet azure peeking through the sallow fog. All around her now, there were occasional traces of color: a small green field at the edge of town, the rare group of women clad in brightly colored kimonos of turquoise and marigold and peach. She was watching one who had sapphire ribbons woven through the thick waves of her chestnut hair.  
>"Ya want one?" the male voice next to her asked, his eyes following the direction of her gaze.<br>"No," she replied, plucking at a loose thread from an unraveling hem. "This yukata is my burden to bear."

*o*o*

Tight coils of a brown so dark it looked black, except when a single curl caught a sunbeam; then she could see a hint of a sandy tan. She had hardly noticed how he had somehow slipped so much into her life it was becoming difficult to remember a time when she did not know the precise shade of his hair, the exact way his fingers reached to rub his earlobe when he was tired, the way his nose flared slightly when confused. Ever since the day he had bound her sprained ankle, supporting her as she limped about, kept guard at night and shared the water he stole with her for the two full days it had taken for her foot to heal, she had felt her guard slipping.  
>It was an entire month before she let herself fall asleep around him without gripping the dagger concealed in her sleeve. But now she had memorized the pattern of his breathing, as he had hers. She knew just how many seconds she would need to distract a vendor for him to escape with their water, he knew how many hours until the scalding in her throat became unbearable. Yet it still shook her when one morning as they sipped their water, he looked her in the eye and said, "What's yer name?" When she did not reply, he said, "I'm Souji." No, she wanted to shout, don't tell me. But it was too late, he had thrust it upon her, and now she would forever attach a name to the unmanageable tangle of curls and hazel eyes rimmed with a band of gold and hands so large she was surprised they were deft enough to steal efficiently. Names remained even long after memories had dissipated, bundled with guilt and regrets, and she did not want any other name haunting her. One was more than enough for a lifetime.<br>"Ya don' hafta tell me now," he said quietly.

*o*o*

Small speckles of colors darting here, darting there. She had never seen so many children alive, small feet pattering on the worn cobblestone of the street. She stared hard at each one, but she had never seen the right shade of violet.  
>"What's 'er name?" Souji asked one day. She whipped her head around, startled. "What's yer sister's name? It is yer sister, right? Or s'it a cousin?"<br>"S-sister," she stammered, wrapping her yukata more tightly around herself, as though Souji's probing eyes could somehow see the guilt she guarded in her heart, the frantic fear as she clawed at the empty bushes that she felt as acutely now as in that harrowing moment so many decades ago.  
>"That's cool, ya know, the will ta keep hopin', ta keep searchin'." He patted her shoulder. The compassion in the gesture caused something to tighten in her chest, compressing the guilt and despair into an intolerable pain, but she could not bring herself to shake off his hand. There was something achingly wistful in his voice, and if she were stronger, braver, she would have asked him whom he carried in his heart.<p>

*o*o*

Another page steeped in red, red, red, the color she detested the most. How fitting she was named after what she loathed.  
>His untamed curls were saturated with that awful, glistening scarlet as his face hovered near hers, tight with jaws clenched, refusing to let her gauge the depth of his pain. "Don' ya dare move!" he hissed softly in her ear, ensuring that no one else could hear as he crushed her beneath him, his large frame completely enveloping hers.<br>"Let me go, Souji! Damnit, you'll bleed to death if I don't -" She tried to struggle, but he froze her with a smile. Her last memory before blacking out as something struck the back of her head was the calm acceptance in his features that made her want to shriek.  
>When she opened her eyes, Souji's lifeless body had been dragged off her. Somber figures were piling together the corpses of those caught in the senseless altercation between the two warring gangs of the district. She saw in the corner of her eyes two men clad in black, long swords hanging beside them, dispassionate eyes sweeping coldly over the grisly scene. And she saw red again.<br>Lunging after them, dagger in hand, she screamed "You fucking bastards! You could've stopped this! You could've stopped this! You could've saved him!" Warm liquid streamed down her hands. The blade clattered to the ground, broken. The palm of her hand bled freely, torn open by the impact of the hilt against it. One of the shinigami turned towards her with flinty eyes, seeing right through her. "Rukongai is not within our jurisdiction," he said dismissively and, with a single sweep of his arm, flung her against a column.

*o*o*

Dull steel sky reflected on still waters, the surface smooth like a sheet of metal reflecting phantom shapes. She closed her eyes before she could see her own outline, slumping down and Souji's body with her. Her wild rage was spent, leaving her drained, but still she began digging, viciously tearing the roots from the earth. It was hard to recognize the bloated features and skin with blotches of sickly white, green, and carmine as she dragged it towards the hole. She shut her eyes tightly, but she couldn't stop the tears winding down the stinging path. She whispered to him, "Hisana. My name is Hisana." Too late. Always too late.

*o*o*

A dusty brown row of clay jars lined up on wobbly tables. She realized she had nearly forgotten how to steal them - she had become so used to Souji doing that part of the task. Suddenly, she felt the slow burn of ire again, at Souji for dying, at herself for letting him, at Souji for dying for her and leaving her alive, alone with the guilt, but mostly at the shinigami for everything.  
>Her hands were trembling so much and the effort of driving memories of Souji from her head left her movements so jerky and slow that she was amazed that half an hour later, the jar was tucked safe in her arms and she had shaken off the vendor's henchmen in the labyrinthine twists and turns of the narrow alleyways. If this had been Inuzuri, the sloppiness of her robbery would have landed her in a ditch, gutted and with her arms sliced off.<p>

*o*o*

Blue, blue, blue all around her, the blues in the sky, the blues in her yukata. Blue. Aoiko. Guilt, guilt coursing through her like her blood. The red of blood, the red she abhorred. Hisana. The red blood, the guilt, the self-hatred bled into her yukata, all her failures embodied there: the sister she failed, the woman she murdered, the friend she sacrificed.

*o*o*

Purple a shade too dark, a purple a shade too light. Never the right shade, never.  
>"Souji," she said one day to the empty space beside her. "When did you give up?"<br>It was only then she realized with him beside her, watching her with eyes kind and pensive all at once, she could almost hope, almost believe in a happy end, so that the repeated failures weighed a little less heavily.


	3. Byakuya: Faded Crocuses

**Byakuya: Faded Crocuses**

**Note: **The zanpakuto arc is anime-only, so I feel no compunction about disregarding it entirely and having Senbonzakura be female.

It was one of those days, he knew immediately. Two Kuchiki branch family heads had nearly come to blows over whose child had rights to some insignificant plot of land. Helping resolve that meant he arrived late for the fukutaichou morning debriefing and had to endure a humiliating reprimand. The lowly commoners who somehow had managed to rise to fukutaichou in the third and ninth squad snickered, and he nearly lost his temper.  
>Then there was his punishment - naturally, his least favorite task: evening surveillance of south Rukongai. Although every Shinigami skimped on the Rukongai circuits, never venturing past the first twenty districts (Byakuya learned from Ginrei every generation of Kuchiki had abided by this unwritten amendment well before he was ever assigned the task), it was still close to intolerable. There was far too much dust, waste - human and animal - and noise. Vendors shouting, children screaming, splintering wood as dilapidated carts and huts collapsed. Having been raised in near constant silence, he always returned from Rukongai with a throbbing headache and nausea from the stench. Hollows had their own hideous odor, but it was a kind of cold rot embedded in their reiatsu that vanished with them. In the hazy heat of Rukongai, the fumes of its filth seemed to permeate his clothes, and well after he was within the sanctuary of Seireitei, the smell of feces and urine lingered.<br>The shadows lengthened; streaks of violet ran free through the edges of the sky, dodging between protrusions of towers and steepled roofs. He turned his eyes away sharply, hating himself for the surge of anger.  
>A jigokuchou fluttered into his field of vision. Almost certainly a message he would not care for, he thought grimly. As if on cue, he heard Yamamoto's brusque voice.<br>"I'm quite aware of the fact that it is accepted policy to take rather liberal shortcuts in the Rukongai surveillance missions." He paused for a brief second, but Byakuya said nothing. Lying was both dishonorable and pointless when dealing with the soutaichou.  
>"I did not want to disclose the following this morning before the other fukutaichou. The academy contacted me yesterday: several of their young recruits from South Rukongai have gone missing within the past two months. I sent a recon group out early in the afternoon. They will report to you tonight at Hikonyuto's office."<br>"Yes, sir."  
>The jigokuchou did not fly off. Finally, he heard the general commander, oddly hesitant, say "Although more than four decades have passed since...that incident, the disappearance of anyone with substantial reiryoku is a cause for inordinate concern."<br>The dark patches of purple had spread through the entire darkened sky, so he forced his eyes to the ground.  
>"You have not heard anything from the former Shiho-"<br>"No!" he spat. "Soutaichou," he added, trying to level his voice.  
>"Very well. I have alerted the Sixth division squad patrolling the south watchtower to be ready for summons if the situation requires immediate attention. I trust knowing this you will perform your duties tonight more meticulously than is your wont."<br>"Understood." The butterfly finally flapped away, and he began making his way toward Shuwaimon. He nearly tripped when a roof tile shattered from his unsteady Shunpo exerting excessive force.  
><em>Well, that takes head over heels in love to another level<em>, Senbonzakura remarked sarcastically.  
>He clenched his teeth.<br>_Well, are you done sulking yet? I don't much feel like babysitting extra tonight; it's wilting season - very tiring you know._  
>He stayed silent. Arguing with her was invariably a losing proposition, and he didn't need her jibes to add to his growing headache.<br>_Good boy. We can go kill a few cats tomorrow if you don't screw up too badly tonight._

He stood atop the Shuwaimon guardian's office, though given the nature of the job, it was primarily used as storage space. He had intended to receive the report prior to doing his round, but now he wondered if that was a mistake. The lights had one by one vanished from the shacks. At this rate, he would barely manage four hours of sleep.  
>After briefly stretching, he began methodically scanning the first district. Faint reiatsu, but nothing on the level of a recon squad.<p>

Nothing in the second district. Or third. He halted at the ninth. The squad had started early in the afternoon. He had never done a full circuit, but he had never spent more than an hour on the first twenty districts. They had been out for over eight hours.  
><em>Call for backup.<em>

He sent six squad members off to scan the next twenty districts. The most junior two he sent with the seated officer to examine the middle twenty districts. He headed by himself toward the final thirty.  
>As he ventured further in, roofs - and many could hardly be called that, riddled as they were by holes - became scarce, until they ceased to exist at all. Quietly casting a cloaking spell, he had no choice but to take to the streets. After a few alleys, he gave up on attempting to dodge the piles of excrement, the scattered shapes of corpses in various stages of decay and dismemberment. By the time he was at the seventieth district, every dusty path was grimy with recent bloodshed.<br>Beasts, he thought. He would need to burn his uniform.  
>Just as he entered Inuzuri, he felt a sudden burst of reiatsu. He turned just in time to see the distress flare fade in the distance.<p>

He found the ninth seat officer and his two squad members in the thirty-second district. "Wasn't us," panted the officer. "Pretty sure it came from around the mid-twenties."  
>"I'm going in first. Update the soutaichou and call for reinforcement while you catch up."<p>

The building appeared deceptively harmless. A neatly tiled roof, shoddily painted walls but at least there was paint.  
><em>A candy shop<em>, she said disgustedly.  
>With one hand over Senbonzakura's hilt, he stepped inside. A quick survey confirmed what he had already discerned from a preliminary scan outside. There was nothing on the first floor but bins of candy. He pushed open the door in the back corner, and found neatly stacked boxes. He immediately fixed upon the last row, the end slightly askew. Sure enough, as he stepped over it, he sensed layers of barrier kidou, meshing together to both guard the entrance and conceal the spells' presence.<br>He began gathering reiryoku in his hand, but she stopped him short.  
><em>Wait for the rest. That's no ordinary set of spells.<em>

Someone stifled a strangled shriek. Hasty footsteps echoed up the stairs, but not far enough to hide the sound of vomiting. Another retched right there, collapsing on the spot.  
>The limp corpses of the squad members and recon group were unfortunate though expected, but behind them lay scattered heaps of disfigured remains of what they all knew had to be children.<br>_I've never-_ Senbonzakura's voice gave out. His own stomach churned, and in his many decades in the Sixth Division, he had witnessed his fair share of gore.  
>He stepped closer. None of the faces were discernible. One was smothered behind a thick layer of pus, limbs shrunken like dried out leather. Another was half blown away, charred bits of innards stark against pale bone. Another was covered in boils so swollen they had burst leaving behind sallow splatters. Jagged bone lacerated through skin. He nearly closed his eyes; bile scalded his throat.<br>Then he saw the broken shards by the bodies - that unnatural bleached white, interrupted by the occasional black or red. The sharp inhales told him the others had come to the same conclusion.  
>"How could something like this be kept secret for so long?" someone whispered.<br>He picked at a small fragment lodged in a crack in the wall. "Sekkiseki walls. They've already removed that layer. Notify the twelfth division and the soutaichou immediately," he barked. He gestured at the two nearest him. "Come with me. The rest of you, secure the perimeter until the others arrive."

He had noticed in the storage room a dangling rope from the ceiling which he suspected was the entry way to the upper levels.  
>Sure enough, with a light tug the ceiling gave way to reveal a ladder. He crept up. He felt no trace of reiatsu, which made him even more uneasy. But halfway up, he heard furtive steps. Leaping to the top, he saw a small figure flattened against the wall beside the aperture in the floor. She was so small he would have thought her a captive child were it not for the knife she was gripping. And her eyes. There was nothing young about her eyes.<br>Before she registered that he was already beside her, he struck the pathetic blade away. She had no reiryoku and attempting to stab him would have only injured her, but he couldn't quite reign in his rage completely.  
>She whipped around to face him in shock. Suddenly, it wasn't cold ruthlessness that hardened her eyes. There was something far uglier as she hissed, "What the fuck is <em>your<em> kind doing here?" He nearly recoiled at the venom in her voice.  
>He recovered quickly enough, but he was struck by the thought that her reaction didn't quite add up. Although he could understand malevolence toward her captors, where was the fear of the impending punishment? And the shock was mixed with bewilderment, rather than the wounded sort of conceit at being found out that one usually found in apprehended criminals.<br>It was too late to begin interrogations tonight. He was both physically and mentally exhausted.  
>He was in no shape to spend hours facing a pair of deep amethyst eyes wild with anger, the very shade he had seen twisting through the borders of the sky earlier. How he hated that color<p>

He ground his teeth in frustration. The meeting with Yamamoto and the twelfth division had been worthless. There was little to report that he did not already conclude last night. It was the same sort of hollowfication experiment from decades earlier, but this time, performed on mere children with infinitely more ghastly results. But through what means was unclear. And there was no hard evidence tying it back to Uruhara. Scouring the area had not revealed any trace of his reiatsu. Besides, it was well-known his connections were all based in West Rukongai. There was nothing to do but to hope that the interrogation of the woman had been more fruitful.  
>He found the detention cell overflowing with idle watchers crowded around Kichida, his fourth chair, and a tiny figure curled in a fetal position. He hadn't noticed last night, but he saw now the lavender crocuses dancing across the unevenly faded blue yukata. He cursed under his breath.<br>Aloud, he snapped, "I was not aware interrogating a single Rukongai rat without a shred of reiryoku took a roomful of Sixth Division members."  
>Within seconds the area had been emptied amidst frightened apologies.<br>"Who were you working for?" Kichida was shouting. The woman gasped, quite obviously choking.  
>"She couldn't answer even if she wanted to. Control your reiatsu."<br>"Goddamn bitch hasn't been willing to say a fucking thing all day anyhow," Kichida fumed.  
>"So you've learned nothing?" Byakuya bit out.<br>Kichida turned on the woman suddenly, lifting his hand and striking her across her face. But she reached out, gripping his hand and sinking her teeth into it. The shinigami cried out in rage and flung her against the bars. His control snapped, assaulting her until she was dangerously close to asphyxiation.  
>"Do you plan to kill our only source of intelligence simply because of your own deficient interrogation methods?" he demanded coldly.<br>The pressure subsided.  
>"I'll take over from here," he said flatly, gesturing toward the exit.<br>Kichida looked mutinous for a moment but managed to bow perfunctorily. "My deepest apologies for my failings." As he left, he could not restrain himself from a sharp kick to the woman's ribs.  
>Byakuya half-expected her to be unconscious, but as he reached down to gather her in his arms, her eyes snapped open. Fixing him again with that cold glare, she spat in his face. He nearly dropped her but managed to bring her to her chair.<br>"If you find your present conditions so objectionable, I suggest you begin cooperating with our questioning," he said icily, wiping away her saliva with his sleeve. Another uniform to burn. He would need to order more spares soon.  
>Her only response was a derisive snort.<br>"What is their hold over you?"  
>She laughed harshly, though judging by the pain that twisted briefly in her face, it cost her. "They're not shinigami assholes?"<br>He watched her closely. Her loathing was palpable, far too intense to be artifice. "You're mistaken. They had to have been highly trained shinigami to have setup such a complicated set of kidou barriers and obtained enough Sekkiseki to plaster over the entire cellar."  
>"Come again?" she stared blankly at him for a moment before defiantly turning away.<br>"You expect us to believe you were unaware of the cellar?"  
>"Look, dumbshit, you came barging into my <em>attic<em>. Why are you going on about some fucking cellar? Plus, if we had one, why the hell would we store all our crap above ground?"  
>"Who's the 'we'?"<br>She said nothing.  
>"You have an unusually high ability to endure pain. Did they prepare you to withstand torture?" She whipped her head around to face him and there was raw fury in her eyes. For a moment, he thought she would spit at him again. One hand reached up a sleeve. She must have kept that knife concealed there.<br>"Are you concerned that if you reveal anything, they will eliminate you?"  
>"In here? How the hell are they gonna get in here?" she said scornfully. "Oh, I forgot. You're trying to trick me into thinking they're your kind."<br>"I assure you we will not let you come to any harm from them."  
>"Yeah, you fuckers have a full schedule of beating me up yourselves," she replied scathingly.<br>He moved directly before her, holding her gaze. He had looked into the eyes of Hollows, but the hatred there was that kind of blind, primal hate. He had never seen it so sharp, so focused. At him. It unnerved him. There was no script, no rulebook for this, and he let his frustration show. "Have I struck you a single time? Even when you spat in my face?"  
>She flushed and dropped her eyes.<br>"As the heir of a noble clan, if a member of my household had behaved as you had, it would have been within my right to execute them." He had meant to impress her with how strictly he adhered to the protocol of interrogation, but instead when she looked at him again, there was pure contempt added to the antipathy.  
>"You're all such hotshots you get to decide who lives and dies, huh?" her voice catching on each word, as if she could barely force it out through her ire. Abruptly, she turned away again, fixing her eyes on some distant point in the single barred window. There was no use questioning her further for the present.<p>

He was surprised that she seemed completely unaffected by the silence. He had thought, given the raucous atmosphere of Rukongai, the unrelenting quiet broken only by the occasional shuffle of the papers he had ordered brought down to the cell would intimidate her, perhaps even cause her to babble a bit. But she remained perfectly still, steadily staring outside, until he was the one to finally speak.  
>"What is your name?"<br>No response. He saw her jaw muscle twitch in irritation.  
>"Your name?" he repeated.<br>"Why the hell should I tell you?"  
>"It is necessary for several documents I need to file," he said with far more patience than he felt<br>"Why don't you just use Rukongai trash?" she retorted.  
>He nearly snapped his brush. He was terribly behind on paperwork. He was worn out. He hadn't slept more than a few hours in the past two days, and the last night's attempt at rest resulted only in a barrage of gruesome nightmares that woke him every few minutes. He finally gave up, soaked in a cold sweat and feeling violently ill. And there was no chance of sufficient sleep for the foreseeable future.<br>It was times like these he wished he still drank sake. Of course, he noted sourly, it would be a woman who had ruined that for him as well.

_I believe her,_ his zanpakuto said suddenly, jolting him awake just as he was drifting off. He hated when she did that, which was, he was sure, precisely why she continued doing it.  
>He sighed.<br>_Her behavior has been far too irrational for her hatred to be anything but the truth. She would never have willingly cooperated with shinigami._  
><em>If she were merely ignorant of that fact yet aided them nonetheless in that despicable operation, would it make her any less guilty?<em> He pressed his lips together tightly.  
><em>Do you really judge her to be that inhuman? On the contrary, I find her fault to be that she is entirely too human.<em>  
>At least in slumber, the woman let slip her fierce bravado, leaving behind a petite frame curled in the corner. He was struck again by how small she really was. There was something almost fragile about her slender fingers, brushing against the patterns of pale crocuses, iridescent in the dark.<br>_I never knew you to be such a sympathetic fool_, he replied coldly.

She was a noiseless sleeper; she did not shift or speak. Were it not for the small hitch of pain in her breathing, there would be no evidence of her presence.  
>He was still working through reviewing the reports from several days ago. He knew of certain senior officers who bullied their subordinates into an unfair share but thought it poor form to and a dangerous compromise of the records' accuracy.<br>A light gasp interrupted his brush stroke. Again.  
>In all fairness, the labored intake of her breath was so soft rustling his papers more loudly would have drowned it out. But it was always the quietest sounds that echoed the loudest in his mind. Irritated at his own pathetic lack of concentration, he slipped into the cell and tried recalling as best he could the rudimentary healing kidou that he had not used in decades. Hesitantly, he lifted his hands over her. Her ribs were cracked but not broken. His skill was nowhere near sufficient to treat that. There were pallid scars crisscrossed in a lattice pattern everywhere: reiatsu burns. Kichida must have spent the better part of the day whipping and throttling her with it, knowing full well she was utterly defenseless against it, he thought disgustedly. There were a few bruises, but the reiatsu burns would last far longer, and there was no known treatment. Exhaling nervously, he tried a simple pain-relief spell. Slowly, her breathing eased.<br>Just as he was settling back down with his papers, she cried out weakly as her ribs strained under the force of a dry cough. He recalled that she did not need food, but she did need water.  
>When he returned with a jar, he was surprised to find her awake. There was still the rosy haze of early dawn in the light streaming in.<br>Her eyes widened when she saw him, and her hands shook. She shrank from the glass he offered her, her hands still trembling in her lap. There was no hate in her eyes for a change: just a haunted loneliness, just stark branches leaving shadows in the distance that one could never catch.  
><em>Could she really have led those children to the cellar?<em> he thought unsteadily. A woman with such feeble resistance against her own memories, her own feelings? Could she have contained the guilt? Kept it from overwhelming her sanity?  
>Slowly, the more familiar animosity returned to her gaze. She stiffened, peering at the liquid dubiously.<br>"It isn't poisoned," his voice came out harsh.  
>Grudgingly, she accepted the water.<br>"You been here all night? You plan on watching me forever?" she demanded.  
>"If that is what is necessary," he answered calmly. She looked furious but said nothing, so he turned back to his reports.<p>

A jigokuchou interrupted him as he was working through a particularly suspect expense report. He sighed, knowing what was coming.  
>"Progress?" Yamamoto barked by way of greeting.<br>"Little."  
>"Have we tried any of the interrogation zanpakuto?"<br>"She has no reiryoku. Neither those nor kidou would be effective. She would simply be struck unconscious."  
>He could nearly hear the soutaichou grimace. "Do we need to involve the Detention Unit?"<br>"No," he said sharply. "She would not last more than a moment in their facility."  
>Yamamoto slammed the ground with his cane in frustration. "Get something. Soon! I can't keep this from the Academy forever, and as soon as that happens, this will be public knowledge. I need a name by then." The butterfly was gone before he could make any reply.<br>"Good luck with that," she smirked.  
>He flipped open his account books without a glance in her direction.<p>

He thumbed through the scanty dossier. The building for the candy shop had been leased at a remarkable premium. The trail of who had paid the rent involved nearly a dozen shell companies and their subsidiaries, but ultimately ended at the accounts of a large group that operated several pricy hotels in the best districts of Rukongai as well as many shabbier ones in the middle districts. They also happened to own nearly a fifty teahouses, some with rather questionable reputations. He scrutinized her closely. She was young and attractive enough, but he had to admit there was little chance she ever engaged in that line of work. The shinigami of low birth were far too frequent patrons, and he suspected her reaction to their propositions would have been far more violent than her reaction to being interrogated.  
>"Who offered you the position at the store?"<br>"How do you know it wasn't mine?"  
>"We traced the rent to the mother company. None of the board members are female."<br>"Well, maybe you should ask them then."  
>"None of them were aware of the expenditure. It was packaged within a larger real estate transaction rather opaquely executed by a subsidiary. The employee who had organized it resigned quite some time ago and has vanished. I suspect it will be extremely difficult to find him."<br>She offered no reaction.  
>"We were unable to find any of the store's account books."<br>"That wasn't my job."  
>"Whose was it?"<br>"Why the hell would I know?"  
>"Did you not keep receipts of purchases? Who did you turn them over to?"<br>She remained quiet.  
>"What are three sevens?"<br>"What?"  
>"Five nines?"<br>She rolled her eyes.  
>"They are simple questions, are they not?"<br>"I don't understand a damn thing you just said."  
>"How were you able to purchase the inventory for the store without knowing even basic arithmetic?"<br>She gritted her teeth. "I didn't. They just got delivered to the store room every other week."  
>"And I suppose you wouldn't know who made the orders?"<br>She shrugged.  
>As a matter of fact, he already had the purchase record. The shipments were all paid for in cash with a healthy sum on top to cover delivery services.<br>"Have you any idea what the shop cleared on a daily basis?"  
>No response.<br>"How many transactions were there on an average day?"  
>No response.<br>"Did it even turn a profit? Or did anyone care?" he continued, glancing at her pointedly.  
>"Are you retarded? No, I don't know a damn thing about how stores are run. And I don't care. Someone offered me a job that was going to let me stay alive. Why the fuck would I have cared about anything else?" she shot back in a hard voice. "A pompous ass sitting nice and pretty in your little Seireitei may not get it, but for some of us, living ain't that easy."<br>"And who offered the job?"  
>She stood shakily and retreated into a corner with her back towards him. He stood as well and returned to his desk to transcribe their conversation.<p>

He waited until she had dozed off to reapply the pain-relief spell. He fell asleep with the rhythm of her breathing in his head. He woke to her coughing and stepped out to fill the jar. Taking the chance to splash cool water on his own face, he wondered how long this routine would last.

"Are you drugging the water?" She had not touched the jar.  
>"We have little use for drugs as kidou spells are the preferred method of healing."<br>She blinked rapidly, and he saw a series of still-shots of eyes bright with anguish so intense it hurt to look at, like staring directly into the sun. He didn't understand - not her anger, not her hate, not the flash of vulnerability yesterday as she shuddered when he offered her the glass, and not her vulnerability now. He felt no triumph at her weakness. Instead, it shook him. Nothing about her behavior fit the profile of a criminal, yet he could not rid himself of the conviction there was something to be gained in breaking her silence.  
>"Don't bother," she muttered finally. "Don't waste time on someone you're gonna kill anyway."<p>

He was tempted to swat the jigokuchou away when it came or better yet, squash it and its annoyingly perky flapping between his hands. Unfortunately, that would be a level three infraction.  
>"Update?"<br>"Nothing to report, sir."  
>He could hear the Yamamoto's thinning patience in the pause. "Two more days. Two more days, and if she doesn't give us a name by then, I'm bringing in the Detention Unit."<br>"Understood, sir."

"You had no qualifications for the job. What induced you to take it?"  
>"Hey asshole, in your stuck-up opinion, am I qualified for anything?"<br>He ignored her biting answer. "Why did you migrate to the district illegally?"  
>She blinked quickly, and there it was again - the haunted despair. She swiftly recovered and settled into a stony silence.<br>"You have not given us your name, but the district does keep a photograph archive of registered residents as well. You do not appear."  
>She gave no indication she heard him.<br>"In fact, there are no photographic records of you in any of the districts where such data exists."  
>He sighed. "It's clear you must have arrived from the outskirt areas. How did you manage to enter into the gated districts and escape all registrations?"<br>She gave a mirthless smile. "That was the only way to get in. They thought we were trash to keep out at costs." She gave him a cutting look. "Like you guys think of anyone from Rukongai."  
>"Is that your assessment of my treatment of you?" he asked sharply.<br>She had the grace to flush a bit. "That's just 'cause you need me now, and as soon as you're done with me, you can dump me on that Detention Unit," she retorted.  
>"If you were willing to cooperate, I assure you I will prevent the Detention Unit from access to you."<br>She laughed hollowly. "Don't waste your breath. There isn't a death horrible enough that I'd rat out someone to a shinigami."  
>He thought of the tortured bodies of the children and pierced her with a wintry stare. "Even if they aided in unspeakable atrocities?"<br>She snorted. "Dude ran a shady store. Shinigami..." she stopped, the bitterness choking her. She brought her hand to her mouth and bit knuckles so hard he saw a thin trail of blood, but she was past noticing such things.

The reports came back from the interviews with those who lived with the murdered children, and others who lived nearby. Yes, they recognized her. She ran the candy store. She never mentioned her name. She was nice enough to the kids - didn't chase them out if they didn't buy anything within the first few minutes, but she knew how to teach the ones stealing a lesson. No, she wasn't overly friendly with the kids. Kind of distant actually. She went out very rarely, and usually in the afternoons. No, they never saw her with any adults. She didn't really seem like she ever associated with anyone.  
><em>She didn't know anything. She didn't try to ingratiate herself with the children.<em> he thought._ She was just a pawn. Without reiryoku, it would have been effortless to conceal everything from her._

He was surprised to find her watching him instead of gazing grimly out the window. He waited, but she seemed disinclined to say anything. Just a cool stare, a haughty lift of a chin. It would be so easy to crush her, he thought. In fact, it took such effort to reign in every bit of his reiatsu. Even a small amount would inflame the scars she already had. But that would not shatter her will, her anger, her fragility, all entrenched around her secrets like a maze without entrances.  
>What could he say to make her believe he did not want her at the mercy of the Detention Unit, he did not want her dead? That he did not believe her a criminal?<br>But just then, a familiar arctic voice cut in, "Have you forgotten your pride as a Kuchiki?"

_Did he think it excusable that a fukutaichou be utterly stymied by a tiny slip of girl without a drop of reiryoku?_  
>No sir.<br>_Did he have an explanation of why a Kuchiki heir was flummoxed by a lowbred slum dweller?_  
>None, sir.<br>_Did he intend to make a mockery of their name?_  
>No, sir.<br>_Did he think this mission a joke?_  
>Absolutely not, sir.<br>_So why after three days had he made no progress?_  
>He has yet to convince her to answer his inquiries.<br>_What nonsense was that? Was he an imbecile? Deprive her of water! Deprive her of sleep!_  
>It is against the interrogation procedural rules, sir.<br>_Had he sustained a concussion? Had he gone daft? The protocol had clearly only been intended for shinigami! Did he think Rukongai rats deserved such consideration? Did he think they were his equals?_  
>No, sir.<br>_What was difficult about this? He hardly was conscious of using any pressure and she was already screaming. Who are you working with, scum?_  
>All the reiatsu was going straight to her scars, tearing them open. <em>Oh god<em>, stop it, _stop it_. His throat was raw, why could he hear only her screams?  
><em>What? The rat still won't speak? He would just add a fraction more pressure. He still could barely tell he had released any reiatsu.<em>  
>She couldn't breathe, her ribs couldn't handle her spasms of pain, oh god, they were going to snap...<em>stop it! Stop it!<em>  
><em>Pathetic. Already unconscious. Well, he would leave it to his worthless fukutaichou. A few more rounds of this, and she would crack. He guaranteed it. And he expected a mission succeeded debriefing by the next day at the latest. Was he clear?<em>  
>Yes, sir.<p>

Skilled healers could construct a layer around their hands to dissipate the pain they siphoned off, but with his rudimentary abilities, the pain pooled at his fingertips, chafing them until they split open. He bled through one set of bandages, and then another.  
>"I thought I told you, don't bother," she whispered.<br>"Don't speak," he said tiredly. "You are still weak."  
>She lifted one hand and he froze as she touched his heavily wrapped fingers. Such a tiny hand, so seemingly frail. But it was his that trembled.<br>"Why do you care? Why can't you just let me be?" she burst out, but she did not push him away. She swallowed hard, and though she was looking at him, he knew she did not see him.  
>"What's the point? You're just healing me up to get beaten by that old bastard again. Or the Detention Unit," she said more quietly. "And the next time, I'll die."<br>"No," he stated flatly. "I will not permit it."  
>"You won't <em>permit<em> it? Permit what? You won't permit me to die now?" she tried to laugh, but only managed a thin wheeze.  
>He set her hand down and began adding a second layer of the pain barrier spell over her ribs. "I will not permit you to be killed by Kuchiki-taichou or the Detention Unit," he clarified.<br>"That's not really up to you."  
>"I beg your pardon? This is <em>my<em> mission," he said coldly.  
>"And the dude that sends you those freaky butterflies and your asshole captain are your bosses! You plan on standing up to them? For me? A low-bred slum dweller?" she snorted in disbelief.<br>"I do not stand by idly while the innocent die," he replied firmly.  
>She stiffened and slowly closed her eyes. She swallowed again and again, but when she opened her eyes again, her lashes were damp. "There's nothing crueler than making promises you can't keep."<p>

_He heard the soft soughing of spring drift through the branches laden with sakura, mingling petals and the tiny droplets of rain._  
><em>"From all directions<em>  
><em>Winds bring petals of cherry<em>  
><em>Into the grebe lake."<em>1  
><em>Remember this, she had said. Remember my voice, remember my name, remember the tiny flecks of frosted pink dispersed far and wide before they fall forgotten to the ground. Remember, because no one else will.<em>  
><em>Chire, Senbonzakura.<em>  
>Remember the tempo of her faint breathing, remember the rise and fall of her chest pressed so close he could feel her heartbeat. Remember the way her lashes fluttered open, and he thought he heard thick clusters of flowers rustling in the breeze.<br>Remember the petite figure who should have been submerged by the vast space of the room, but she would never let anything smother her. Even hobbled by her injuries, she flitted about, examining the few pieces of furnitures, peering out into the dimly lit hallways of the inn, studying the shadowy fronts of buildings lining the deserted street below her window.  
>Remember the hands tanned and calloused and <em>alive<em> plucking at frayed threads of the embroidered crocuses on her yukata. Remember the amethyst eyes rimmed with gold like the clouds catching the waning light of sunset at their edges.  
><em>"Along the mountain road<em>  
><em>somehow it tugs at my heart,<em>  
><em>a wild violet"<em>2  
>"My name is Hisana," she said. "I've only ever told one other person. He died protecting me," she added after a moment.<br>Remember this.

1 By Matsuo Basho

2 Also by Matsuo Basho


	4. Hisana: Sketches of White

**Hisana: Sketches of White**

It was that lovely glossy brown again. His hair was arranged in slightly disheveled waves - arranged because there was nothing about this man that was not carefully constructed, from the feigned pleasantry in his eyes, the curve of his smile as shallow as the warmth in his expression, to his dress, immaculate but just bland enough to be utterly forgettable. She was too familiar with the hollowness lurking in eyes to be fooled; there was a dangerous edge to the isolation she saw in his and she involuntarily stepped back, suddenly chilled.  
>"Would you like a job?"<br>She had taken down men larger than he, but she instinctively knew this was not a man to cross. She normally ran from those with a presence like his on sight, but she had not even seen him approach her. More reason to not cross him.  
>"What kind of job?"<br>"I need someone to look after a candy store. You like children, don't you?"  
>"I don't have a clue how to run a store." She knew instantly that he had seen her glancing at the face of every child that crossed her path, though she had decades of experience in keeping her movements inconspicuous. He was easily the most frightening person she had ever met.<br>"Your job will be very simple. You just need to watch the store, make sure kids don't cause too much mischief, and collect the money. Others will handle the accounting, inventory, everything. There will even be a place for you to sleep in the attic, and we'll deliver water to you. You'll finally have a place to sleep instead of tree branches, and a source of water besides stealing." The gentle voice, like everything about the man, was a threat reminding her how many times he could have killed her. Not noticing one was being tailed was the fastest way to die in Rukongai.  
>"Pretty sure no one ever says no to you, and I'm not planning to be the first."<br>"You're mistaken. I have been refused. Just not by anyone still in existence."

*o*o*

She stared at the ghostly white of the sheet covering the tatami mat on the floor. The last time she had slept on something besides dirt or branches was when Souji let her rest on a tattered mat, guarding her at nights as they waited for her ankle to heal. Now, as then, she slept sitting up against the wall, hands gripping a dagger. Every creak, every breeze in the night woke her. But in time, Souji's breathing became the only sound that had ever lulled her to sleep. She would never sleep easily inside these walls, where every noise reminded her of that man and the solitude in his eyes with an edge so hard she thought that alone could have cut her to pieces.

*o*o*

An assault of hazel, brown, gold, black, blue, purple. Every color but the right one. She thought the steady barrage of reminders of her failure would never end. Just when she was finally alone with her paints and tears and guilt, she saw that man enter with that mocking smile. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" and she had never heard kind words sound so poisonous. She shook her head. After he left, she saw her nails had dug so deep into her palms she had drawn blood.

*o*o*

In the windowless dark of her room at night, she remembered poofs of lime and orange and teal and colors she had never seen before perched on dirty sticks, the way Souji's eyes followed every bob and shake of the scraps of cloth, how hoarse his voice was from cheering, the longing in his sigh as he told her he would watch the shows every day if he could, still staring at the empty spot where the puppeteer had been. She had never understood why anyone would describe smiles as bright until she saw his, and she couldn't help but return one tentatively. Someday, he said, when they made it to the first district, they were going to get rich and never have to worry about stealing again, and they would watch shows all the time so he could always see her smile. Her hands went clammy. There was that odd twisting again in her heart so she looked away as she retorted unsteadily that she couldn't even understand half of what the man had said, his accent was so thick.  
>She had made it, she whispered to the shadows. So where were the shows he said he would take her to? Why did she feel further than ever from smiling?<p>

*o*o*

A square of lighter shadows opened up on her floor, tinted with moonlight. The hilt she clenched in her hands was knocked from her as she snapped her head around in time to see robes every bit as black as the hatred exploding in her heart.

*o*o*

There were no blazes of orange or blue or clouds of soot in the sterile beige of her cell, but that was all she could see through the fog of pain. When she bit the flesh she felt by her mouth, the asshole tasted as she always thought they would: a chilly saltiness, like cold sweat, with an aftertaste of ashes and dust and her memories of death.

*o*o*

There was never this much white anywhere she had been before, not even the snow, long stained shades of browns and coal before it ever touched the ground. She hated the way it made his robes seem blacker. She hated the way the chaotic panorama of lives and deaths she remembered in every metallic sip of water she took were no more than ink splotches to him on the endless scrolls of white to conceal or blot out at his whim. She hated the way all her fury, her anger were sucked into that vast emptiness, or whatever it was that let them look right past her even when looking at her.  
>She hated white more than black. More than red.<p>

*o*o*

She had never seen a sunset so vibrant - jeweled tones of ruby and citrine. But a shadowy figure approached and in the silence she heard distant dying groans echoing in her ear and smelled musty tatami mats. She could barely swallow for the burning in her throat, but the glass of water in the outstretched hand struck terror in her.  
>That night, she dreamed of scarred hands and frayed scraps of bandages hovering over her and woke to find her bruises faded to a discolored yellow and the sharp stabbing sensation each time she breathed gone. A glass and jar of water were next to her.<br>"Don't bother," she told him, equally afraid and bitter. "Don't waste time on someone you're gonna kill anyway." She didn't want to memorize the patterns of callouses on his hands, she didn't want to hear the rhythm of his breathing.

*o*o*

Even gray or black paint would have sufficed; she would have painted cracks on the listless beige that, coupled with the unrelenting quiet, dulled her mind until she was always teetering at the edge of a stupor. She hated feeling so defenseless.  
>She hated that the only thing that could focus her mind was the stiffly arranged strands of onyx framing skin so pale it hurt her to stare. Everything about him was arranged as well, but there was no feigned pleasantry, just a stark honesty in the guarded loneliness of his eyes, in every taut twitch of his movements. Beneath the perfect discipline as he neatly stacked his papers, arranged every brush by length on his desk, organized cups by color and size on the shelves, she could see the tension in the boundaries between the whites and blacks he surrounded himself with.<p>

*o*o*

There were mirror images of ivory locks and ebony ones, the same rigid set of the shoulders burdened by the effort of total control, same inflexible eyes of slate. But there was no hesitation in the movements of the older man as he lifted his hand and let her screams pour into the void between whites and blacks that he did not see.

*o*o*

She was not dreaming the pair of hands and gauzy bandages as soft as she often imagined clouds would be and that terrible crimson seeping through them. She reached to touch the heavily wrapped fingertips before she was aware of her own actions, and she realized she had not thought shinigami bled the same red.  
>"I do not stand by idly while the innocent die."<br>She remembered eyes as soulless as flint, the scorching heat of a Rukongai afternoon, her skin so slick she did not feel her hands sticky with blood, a broken blade and broken bodies strewn amidst the charred debris, and she wondered how long it would be before his eyes were stricken with the same blindness.  
>There was a heat stinging behind her eyes that hurt worse than her throat ever had.<p>

*o*o*

A cocoon of soft warmth, like she imagined rays of sun on her face would be without the thick layer of smog interfering. A warmth that comforted rather than smothered, a warmth that floated gently around her rather than cling with layers of perspiration and damp cloth.  
>He had frozen to death, Souji told her once as they shivered beneath the pile of soiled rags scavenged from every corpse they had come across in the past few weeks. But there had been a few precious moments at the very end when he had felt so light, so snug, drifting into a comforting blankness. She thought it must have felt like this.<p>

*o*o*

Souji had once described for her skies studded with thick bunches of tiny lights and a large flaxen orb. She had seen it at last through her cell window, but she preferred the view before her now: the murky charcoal of an empty night sky, but unmarred by metal bars. The familiar sharp smell of urine permeated the air, yet that was easier to breathe than the odorless air of Seireitei that somehow crackled, irritating her nose and throat.  
>She watched him standing dressed in pristine robes in the low light of the lamps that could not hide the peeling paint and threadbare furniture coverings, lips compressed tightly. Her picture of freedom, she knew, must be his vision of hell.<br>However, there was no derision in the eyes that followed her with a diligence that reminded her of hazel ones watching over her in dim corners of alleyways and warehouses as she rested her swollen ankle. It had been some time since she saw them slide past her with contempt. She found it made it harder and harder to meet his gaze.  
>He turned to leave through the doorway.<br>"My name is Hisana," she told him. It would be unacceptably stupid to be too late twice.


End file.
